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Okay, so the point is, next year, when some other April Fool is done on SO, make sure you keep the time zones at mind, to not be a joke to those who are still on March 31st.
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Jerry DodgeApr 18 '13 at 23:37

1

@JerryDodge: ...actually that was kept in mind. It was only shown to people for whom it was April 1 (I have seen the code, it checks the javascript Date())
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ManishearthApr 19 '13 at 3:38

That does seem like an unintended side effect.
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Johan BMar 31 '13 at 22:16

21

@JohanB I thought confusing people and making them feel unwelcome was the point.
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millimooseMar 31 '13 at 22:34

6

@millimoose I thought it was to boost total meta rep with the inevitable "I've never heard of April Fools Day before, so I'm going to be really confused on every website I visit today" questions
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Michael MrozekApr 1 '13 at 0:14

2

Try saying "goodbye" then "yes" then the expert will leave. Ha!
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John Isaiah CarmonaApr 1 '13 at 9:11

15

I'm hoping they're only playing this "joke" on users with enough reputation to get it... People new to the site probably aren't going to get it.
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Chris SApr 1 '13 at 13:40

It's a slightly freaky April Fools joke. I picked up on my third response that it's just a funny trick. If you ask the right questions you can actually have a conversation with the 'expert', must be quite an interesting algorithm. It 'breaks' when you mention April Fools a few times though

This is an another unfunny joke from stuckoverflaw devs dedicated to 1st April day.
"Expert" on the other side is merely a kind of ELIZA software easily recognizable by rephrased replies (that is, this software rephrases your message to form apparently sensible reply). The other kind of replies this software can give is indefinite (see the transcripts in the other answers).

because it wasn't humorous at all (I recognized a bot in 1 message by typing very fast and by "rephrased" pattern). Another annoyance factor was a failure to be unobtrusive - this element fails to be at the screen edge and obscures real page content.

I completely second @Dukeling's opinion on that: low rank on humour, high rank on irritation.

I thought I had gone some obscure adware at first but then realized the chat logs linked to this site. It is slightly funny, but it does get in the way.
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FogestApr 1 '13 at 4:13

9

Why adblock plus ? There is an option called Never on right side of the chat box,perhaps that should stop the caht box appearing on all pages.
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GoodSp33dApr 1 '13 at 5:50

2

@2-Stroker, the key word is perhaps, while I want it to never reappear for sure. pyroscope in his answer feared what user will have to opt-out at every SE site and I share his fears.
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user539484Apr 1 '13 at 6:13

I dont see the pop up anywhere now, think its closed, well back to work :P
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GoodSp33dApr 1 '13 at 6:25